Selectively ignoring Little Geno's complaints, Twiggy and Geno turned to the man standing beside them, Uncle Enzo.
"Thanks, Uncle. For building our friend here a new body."
"Don't mention it. It's all just spare parts I had lying around anyway. Apart from the logic core and the Marcel Group trademark, it's identical to the genuine article!"
So it's a bootleg, then!
That was what ran through Little Geno's mind, though he felt no real resentment about it. After all, it might be a Bangboo body now, but... at least he finally had a body that belonged to him.
"So I'm really free now, un-na?"
"Mm-hm, you really are free now, un-na~"
"Don't copy the way I talk, un-na! And why does every single sentence end with 'un-na', un-na?!"
"Because you're a Bangboo~ It's cuter this way~"
Geno kept teasing Little Geno without ever running dry. He could have kept it up all day.
Twiggy, however, had something to say.
"All right, quit fooling around. While we still have time, let's take Little Geno out for a new outfit. That black is just too ugly."
Twiggy pointed at Little Geno's Bangboo body, still fresh off the factory line, black and bare of any decoration whatsoever. She rolled her eyes a little and, with a touch of distaste, waved Geno along toward the city center. Neither of them had any idea that another heart-pounding adventure was waiting for them.
———
At that same moment, the friends of Anti-Air Section Six had already reached HIA Headquarters in Lumina Square, and had only just shaken off a swarm of adoring fans to make it into the reception room.
"Being too popular seems to come with its own kind of trouble."
Only minutes earlier, a burly man with a full beard, decked out head to toe in merchandise, had passionately confessed his feelings to Harumasa, and his face was still caught somewhere between embarrassment and resignation.
If it had been a cute girl instead, he wouldn't have found it nearly so hard to swallow.
"Heh heh, everybody's so nice. They gave Soukaku tons of food!"
Soukaku hugged the mound of snacks to her chest, giggling with pure bliss, and cheerfully passed some along to Hoshimi Miyabi and Yanagi Tsukishiro.
Still, imagination or not, Yanagi Tsukishiro couldn't shake the sense that something here was off. She couldn't pin down what it was, so she settled for narrowing her eyes and raising her guard a few notches.
"All right, the handover is complete. You can go into the machines now."
Just then, an HIA staff member came to notify the members of Section Six. Guided by the man, the four of them lay down one after another inside the dive pods and were connected to the virtual dive equipment.
Their vision went black. When they opened their eyes again, the world around them had changed beyond all recognition.
"This is... Crete Hollow? No, that's not right. There's some of Number Zero Hollow mixed in as well."
The paths inside any Hollow were uniformly bizarre, but each Hollow had its own distinct environment, and this place struck Hoshimi Miyabi as a patchwork stitched together from a great many of them.
"It's barely different from the real thing. This technology must be very mature indeed."
Harumasa looked around him with open wonder. To think they could simulate something this convincing.
"By the way, what's this technology actually for?"
Harumasa turned his head to ask his own Deputy Section Chief, and Yanagi Tsukishiro pushed her glasses up by the temple, her face perfectly grave.
"Mr. Asaba, as I recall, the commission report I handed you all yesterday contained everything relevant to today's assignment."
"Uh, well, about that..."
Caught out for slacking off the previous day, Asaba Harumasa could only scratch his head sheepishly and let his gaze drift off to one side.
Beside him, Hoshimi Miyabi had gone a little stiff as well.
Seeing that, Yanagi Tsukishiro could only sigh. What else was she supposed to do? Forgive them, obviously.
"Then I'll go over it one more time. HIA called us in to test this brand-new Virtual Dive System. The system can simulate data for all kinds of Ethereals and environments, so that the user gets a realistic experience of handling the many unexpected situations that arise inside a Hollow."
That wasn't all. By having ability data filled in and collected from other people, the system could also generate a simulated version of yourself, or of a matching enemy.
In other words, you could even fight your past self and use the fight to grow stronger.
"Whoa, that really is impressive. Fighting your past self and all that. Feels like something straight out of a shounen manga."
Asaba Harumasa lit up with excitement. Even after all his years of being ground down into a corporate drone, he was still that same hot-blooded boy, though realistically the odds of him being plain anemic were probably higher.
"In that case, can this place simulate food?"
"I don't believe it can yet. Even if you ate it, you wouldn't feel full at all."
Yanagi Tsukishiro explained it to Soukaku with great patience, her voice as gentle as that of a kind and devoted mother.
A little while later, something new finally appeared before the four of them.
"Sorry to keep you all waiting. I'm your guide. You can call me Little Gan."
While the four were chatting, a dusty gray Bangboo had walked up to them and announced itself.
"A guide? About time. What do you need us to do?"
Harumasa showed no great surprise at the Bangboo's sudden appearance. This was a virtual world, after all. Anything turning up here counted as normal.
"Next, the four of you from Section Six will each proceed to a separate arena to fight. We'll be collecting data on your combat performance and testing the Virtual Dive System's capabilities. If anything unexpected occurs, call for us at any time. We can force a system exit to guarantee your safety."
The Bangboo called Little Gan laid out the coming task for Section Six in a slow, unhurried voice, and as it spoke, four Hollow Fissures opened up in front of them all at once.
"Is there any difference between the four arenas?"
"Broadly speaking, no. The number of Ethereals is fixed. Only the combat environment varies a little."
Yanagi Tsukishiro nodded, then began weighing which Fissure would be the best one to choose.
Before she could reach a decision, however, her colleagues moved first.
"Mm. This one will do."
"I'll take this one."
"Then Soukaku picks this one!"
Watching the three of them walk into their Fissures one after another, Yanagi Tsukishiro blinked. It seemed she wouldn't need to choose after all.
"Nothing to be done. This it is, then."
With a sigh, Yanagi Tsukishiro walked slowly into the last Fissure.
What she didn't know was that once she was gone, the so-called guide Bangboo's face darkened, and it wore a smile weighted with meaning.
____
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